


Close Enemies

by Andraste



Category: X-Men: The Animated Series
Genre: M/M, Oral Sex, Sex In A Cave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-05-19
Updated: 2001-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-09 08:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andraste/pseuds/Andraste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What bothered Charles about all of this, more than the pterodactyls, the crocodiles, the midday heat, the exotic rash he'd acquired, or the ants currently crawling up his leg, was that on some level he was starting to enjoy himself."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Enemies

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Season Two when Xavier and Magneto are running around the Savage Land together. Many thanks to Dannell Lites and Alara Rogers for betaing.

Charles Francis Xavier, the world's most powerful telepath and a shining example to mutants everywhere, was not having a good week. Some days ago, a distress call had sent him charging off to rescue his worst enemy (and former best friend, which went some way towards explaining why Xavier _wanted_ to rescue his enemy) in Antarctica. Upon arrival, he had found Magneto safe and well, attending the co-ordinates because of a distress call he had apparently received from _Charles_. This suggested that they'd both been set up by a third party, and this hypothesis was quickly confirmed by the avalanche dropped on their heads. After digging himself out of the snow, Xavier had discovered three things. Firstly, he was trapped with Magneto in a hitherto undiscovered tropical oasis in the midst of the Antarctic ice. Secondly, neither of them had access to their mutant powers. Thirdly, his legs were working. This was _definitely_ a good thing, since he was about to do a lot of running.

Over the past few days, he and Magneto had been chased by dinosaurs (who were not extinct after all) and mutates employed by the Savage Land's master, their shadowy mutual enemy. They had fallen over waterfalls, climbed cliffs, and swum in rivers. Just now, they had been dunked in the water _again_ after escaping from yet _more_ mutates, and were hiding in the undergrowth waiting until it looked safe to come out. What bothered Charles about all of this, more than the pterodactyls, the crocodiles, the midday heat, the exotic rash he'd acquired, or the ants currently crawling up his leg, was that on some level he was starting to enjoy himself.

He was aware of the rocks digging into his thigh, the vine rope cutting off the circulation around his wrists, and the sun beating down on his horribly burnt scalp. Yet his attention was trapped by the body lying next to his, and the arm draped across his back. Wondering how they had ended up like this during the mad scramble to get under cover before the mutates arrived occupied Charles mind while his blisters throbbed, his muscles stiffened and the sweat dripped off his skin. Perhaps Magneto just wanted to make sure he kept his head down. Maybe he was demonstrating solidarity under fire. Or perhaps, like Charles, he was recalling the way things used to be.

There had been a time when he hadn't needed to question what Erik's touch meant, when it was the touch of a lover and a friend, always present, always welcome. But those days had begun increasingly distant as they quarrelled, parted, and began to fight in earnest over the dreams that separated rather than united them. Sometimes Charles had trouble believing that the man under the helmet was the man he had known and loved. He had long ago put his feelings for Magneto away, and almost convinced himself that they had perished of neglect. Yet his own instinctive reaction to the thought of Erik in trouble, and the fact that his sworn enemy had come to rescue him, and the fact that it felt remarkably good to have Erik by his side, even under such trying conditions . . .

Charles sighed heavily, trying not to move in case the mutates were undertaking surveillance from above - although, if they were going to see anything it wouldn't be *his* sensible khaki gear but Magneto's ridiculously bright armour - and cursed the quiet in his mind again. In normal circumstances, he would have been able to stretch out with his extra senses and brush gently against the surface of Erik's mind, easily ascertaining whether their current position was deliberate or accidental. Then again, under normal circumstances they wouldn't be curled up together at all.

Suddenly, on some signal Charles was unable to read, Erik removed his arm, stood up, stretched languorously like a tiger, and started picking the water weed and leaves out of his hair.

"I," he said, with surprising dignity for a man who had just spent an hour huddled under a bush, "am going to take a bath."

Without so much as a glance at Charles he strode off in the direction of the nearest mountains, leaving his puzzled fellow fugitive with no choice but to trail in his wake, something he was reluctantly getting used to.

***

Charles was glad to have a companion who knew something about the Savage Land. He admitted to himself that it was vital to know which of the plants were safe to eat and a rough layout of the geography, even though Magneto was infuriatingly unforthcoming about where he'd acquired his information. Xavier had deduced that Erik had lived in the area for some time, and that the mutates now pursuing them were his former employees, but apart from that he was in the dark.

That evening he learned one more thing - Magneto had been heading towards the mountains for a reason. He had led Charles up a steep and almost hidden path to a cave, and made for the back of the alcove with a sense of purpose. When he returned, he had an even deeper scowl than usual marring his face, and from this Xavier deduced that he had laid in supplies - almost certainly weapons, probably food - but they were no longer there. This strongly suggested that their enemies knew of this hideaway, yet Magneto hadn't recommended moving on, but had taken the knife that was their only weapon and gone out to look for dinner.

The necessity of relying on Magneto's judgement had begun to grate on Charles's nerves. He wanted all the available information about the Savage Land and their enemies, and to be treated like an equal capable of making decisions, especially since he had saved Erik's life more than once in the past seventy-two hours. Yet at the same time he acknowledged that that Magneto had served their mutual interests admirably so far, and had managed to avoid getting them eaten, captured or poisoned. He had even managed to find them a bath of sorts.

Their shelter for the evening was a deep but narrow cave with a pleasantly smooth floor, which would no doubt have made a fine lair for one of the Savage Land's smaller dinosaurs if any of them could have climbed the hill. The torrent of water that must have carved it from the mountain was only a trickle now, a shallow stream that pooled in the cavern before making its way down the slope. It was clean enough to drink from, and looked comfortably cool in the muggy jungle. Charles wanted nothing more than to strip off and wash in it - well, actually, there were lots of things he wanted more, but a bath would be nice anyway - yet he knew that he shouldn't until he was certain they were safe.

Instead, he found wood and flint and started building a fire. It had been a long time since Charles Xavier had been a boy scout, but it was surprising what his telepathic brain had tucked away in its odd corners. Along with several ways of lighting a fire with no matches, he discovered an seemingly endless supply of knots - which might have been useful if he'd had some rope to use them on - and even found himself whistling, something he hadn't felt the urge to do in years. This set him to pondering his mixed feelings once again as he stared into the newly created flames, glad that a roaring fire was one luxury he didn't have to do without. On the one hand, he was frightened and worried about what was going to happen to him, to Erik, and to his students at home. He hated being head blind. He missed his surrogate family terribly, not to mention all the accoutrements of civilisation. He wanted caffeine, and he wanted a razor, and soap. And yet . . .

And yet. Their situation, however dire, was also exhilarating. He was accustomed to sitting at home, taking care of the paper work while his X-Men handled the heroic side of things. Now all of a sudden he could walk and run and fight dinosaurs, like the daring protagonist of some aged paperback from his youth. Then there was the company. Charles knew that there was no more stubborn person he could be stuck in a jungle with than Magneto, and therefore no better companion. He had begun to relax back into their relationship in spite of himself. Even his ex-lover's foul temper felt familiar to the point where it was provoking nostalgia, recalling long gone dark moods and the delightful ways he had charmed Erik out of them . . . which led his mind in all sorts of seductive and dangerous directions. Back to the crux of the issue.

Magneto chose that moment to come walking up the path. Charles listened the familiar footsteps, reflecting that the elevation gave them an advantage over enemies who travelled on the ground, since they would make a lot of noise climbing. Soon his companion appeared in the doorway bearing dinner and his now habitual frown, although he nodded approvingly at the fire. They were dining on fruit and roots again, for although Magneto could certainly have captured one of the Savage Land's many native lizards, Charles had refused to eat them on the grounds that they probably harboured dire prehistoric pathogens they shouldn't export back to civilisation. The actual reason was that Xavier wasn't _that_ hungry yet, and although he suspected that he'd eaten worse things disguised in Gambit's Cajun cuisine, he had no desire to eat anything so exotic knowingly. The fact that Erik, who was hardly a fussy eater or a vegetarian, had agreed with him suggested to Charles that there were probably good reasons for not eating the reptiles.

Taking the food from Erik's hands silently, he threw the yams into the fire and went to wash the fruit in the shallow stream. Looking over his shoulder at his companion who had settled cross-legged on the cave floor, he noted that Magneto's metal uniform looked dusty and slightly dented in places. It was definitely in need of a rinse - it might be very practical for fighting with X-Men and Sentinels, but it wasn't designed for jungle warfare. Once or twice he had almost suggested that the helmet would make a useful cooking pot, but he'd thought better of it. There were important things to argue about.

"I take that we are safe here for the night?"

"As safe as we can be in this place," Erik replied shortly.

"What about the supplies you had stored here?" Charles said. "Surely their absence indicates that the mutates know where to find us?"

Magneto started in surprise, to Charles's considerable irritation.

"How did you . . . ?"

"By using my eyes, Erik, and my powers of deduction. In spite of what you seem to believe, my brain has _not_ melted in the years since we were friends. I would appreciate it if you would stop treating me as if it had."

This seemed to give Magneto pause, and Charles wondered momentarily if he had misjudged his companion. He probably hadn't meant any offence - after all, he'd kept his secrets automatically even before they were enemies.

"No," he said eventually, "it is unlikely that the mutates know where we are. From the debris I discovered outside, I conjecture that my stores were discovered by the native inhabitants. I doubt that any of my wayward followers have the intellectual capacity to throw me off the scent like that."

"Even so, the appearance of natives with modern equipment must surely have alerted the Savage Land's new ruler to the presence of some kind of cache."

Magneto shrugged, and sighed wearily, all the fight gone out of him - for an evening at least. "Perhaps, but we must rest _somewhere_. If I am to be killed or captured, I would like to clean myself and my armor first."

Dinner progressed in not entirely companionable silence, partly because of the tension in the air and partly because both men were starving after the exertions of the day. When Magneto had finished licking the juices of his fingers like a particularly fussy cat, however, he seemed keen to make a conciliatory gesture.

"Since you are my guest, as it were, I invite you to take your bath first."

"That's very kind of you. If you're certain that we're safe . . ."

"Have no fear; I will keep watch."

Xavier unlaced his shoes and eased them gingerly off his blistered and bleeding feet, while Magneto sensibly doused their fire. Examining his socks critically, he decided that they needed a wash, as did the rest of his clothes. Although they would never dry properly in the tropical humidity, at least they'd be soaked with clean water instead of blood and sweat. There was nothing for it, then, but to remove them.

Charles shook his head at his own distraction. Magneto had never had quite this effect on him before, and when they'd met he'd been much younger and more hot-blooded. He certainly shouldn't be feeling the need for a cold shower while trapped in the middle of the wilderness with his worst enemy - obviously it had been far too long since Amelia left him. Glancing over at Erik, he saw his companion watching the trees below with enviably nonchalance. Perhaps he had managed to put their past relationship to one side more successfully than Charles had. Or perhaps he'd just gotten laid more recently.

Whatever the reason behind his mood, he couldn't help reflecting that Magneto had kept himself in fine physical condition while he unbuttoned his shirt. Particularly remarkable since he had a power that functioned like telekinesis - but then the man had always been fanatical about self-reliance, and didn't trust even his inherent abilities completely. He'd probably *expected* a situation like this to arise.

Xavier shed his belt and trousers swiftly, but paused once he'd stripped down to underwear and socks. He *could* just take a bath like this, and stop worrying about the possibility of Magneto turning around and catching him . . . Frowning, he took the last of his clothes off almost defiantly. He wasn't going to let the past get in the way of a decent wash.

It wasn't as if he had anything Erik hadn't seen before.

Finally naked, Charles slid into the water with a deep sigh of relief. The water only came up to his waist while he was standing up, but it was wonderfully cool and he felt cleaner already. Even better, the bottom of the stream was sandy. He picked up a handful and began to scrub one arm with it.

"The ancient Romans used to use sand as a substitute for soap," he said to Erik conversationally. "Well, not a substitute exactly, since they didn't *have* soap."

"Did they happen to discover a natural alternative to the laser rifle while they were at it?"

Charles smiled, pleased to discover that Erik hadn't lost his sense of humor altogether. "I suppose the earliest equivalent was Greek fire; and that's not a lot of good unless you have a spare catapult lying around." He glanced over at the cave entrance, where it was still light even though his body clock said it was pushing midnight.

"It must be getting late," he said, wondering if Magneto understood the time cycles of this strange tropical enclave better than he did.

"Indeed," said Erik, "and it had been a long day." He sounded weary, which was hardly surprising, although Charles himself could still feel the adrenaline pumping through his system and keeping him on edge. He was a habitual insomniac at the best of times, and with no books or dull paperwork to hand he looked forward to a sleepless night. Perhaps he would offer to take first watch, and then 'forget' to wake Magneto until a few hours before dawn. In which case, the self-proclaimed master of magnetism should be rolled in his cloak and put to bed as soon as possible.

"I'm sorry to be hogging the water," he said, beginning to wash the other arm. "I'll be as quick as I can."

"There's no need to hurry," said Magneto evenly. "Who knows when we'll have the opportunity to bathe properly again? Besides, it seems to me that there's plenty of room for two."

Charles blinked in surprise. Did he mean . . . ? No, of course he wasn't making advances, that would have been ridiculous. In any case, Xavier could see no reason to refuse his companion's request. "A sensible suggestion. By all means, join me."

Magneto stripped off his chain mail with no apparent hesitancy or modesty, and Charles found his eyes wandering of their accord. With a twinge of something akin to grief, he saw that his former lover did look older. His muscles were less fluid than they had been in his increasingly distant youth, and new lines of scar tissue marred the planes of his back. Added to the cuts and bruises that had appeared during their ordeal so far, they made Erik look wounded and vulnerable. He even had chafe marks from his armor, which must be impossible to adjust without the aid of magnetic powers. Charles was glad once again that he'd chosen camouflage gear for his sojourn to Antarctica, although he'd had no idea just how useful it would prove at the time.

His ruminations on the view were cut short when Erik turned to stare at him instead, blue eyes steely and bitter. "Are you going to turn your head?"

Charles gritted his teeth, frayed temper close to snapping. It was one thing for Magneto to ignore their past relationship, quite another for him to blatantly strip in front of a former lover and expect him not to misinterpret the action. "Forgive me for taking an undue interest, but the way you spent half the afternoon with your arm draped around me must have given me the wrong idea."

Watching Erik's frown shift into an expression of genuine offended surprise almost made Charles sorry that he'd said anything.

"I was making sure that you kept your head down!" Scowling again, Magneto began pacing, which due to his semi-clad condition didn't quite have the intimidating effect he was aiming for. "We have been thrown together by circumstance and have forged a temporary alliance, but what was between us is no more."

Xavier almost gave up at that point. He was tempted to retreat and nurse the sudden and almost unexpected pain he felt, as if shrapnel lodged in his chest long ago had brushed against his heart.

"Then what am I to make of the fact that you saved my life when we fought the Sentinels together? That you came racing down here at a moment's notice because you believed that I was in danger? Am I only an enemy to you?"

"Xavier," Magneto said somewhat wearily, "I thought that we had reached an unspoken agreement on that point. I have chosen my path, and you have taken your own road into oblivion. If you will not listen to reason, then the fault is yours and you must remain my opponent."

"Enemy or not, I would not let you die if I could prevent it, and it seems that the reverse is also true."

"If you'd wanted to *save* me you should have brought a full complement of X-Men with you."

"Funnily enough, I didn't think I could explain my desire to rescue one of our worst enemies. Hell, I'm not sure I understand it *myself* - you've spent the past decade frustrating my work at every turn, threatening my life and the lives of my students, not to mention the entire *species*. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my days sitting in that chair and . . ." Charles cut himself off in mid-sentence, but it was too late. The unsayable had been said.

Damn.

The words hung in the air while Erik stared at the floor, struck speechless. Charles wondered if he should appologise.

"I did not harm you deliberately," his companion said after a long moment, still unable to meet Xavier's eyes.

"I never thought that you *did* - it was my own fault for dragging you to the astral plane. I should have known that you'd panic, and that any injuries I sustained there would carry over to the material world. I'm only surprised to find that my spinal column is physically undamaged." If he'd had more time to reflect over the last few days, Xavier might have begun to speculate on how he could use that curious fact to walk again, even at the price of a temporary loss of his powers.

"The fault was mine, Charles, and I have regretted it every day since. It was never my intention to cripple you."

Xavier thought about pointing out that 'cripple' was a decidedly un-PC description of his condition, or of reminding Magneto that he'd tried to _kill_ him several times since then. But he had learned not to ask for more than Erik could give.

"I forgave you for that particular transgression a long time ago, and I appologise for my own. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He paused and swallowed. "I must reluctantly admit that I still find myself attracted to you. I'm sorry if I saw a corresponding desire in you where there was none."

Now it was Charles who found himself unable to look at his enemy. Pragmatically, he turned away, picked up another handful of sand and began washing one leg. Now that was all cleared up, they could go back to trying to survive this ordeal. As allies, and nothing more.

Most allies, however, did not take baths together, and Magneto seemed to be removing his underwear and sliding into the water. Definitely not something that Churchill and Eisenhower had gotten up to, to choose an example at random. And even if they *had* taken baths together, Xavier would have been willing to bet that Churchill wouldn't have come up behind Eisenhower and started rubbing his shoulders without fair warning.

"Erik? *What* are you doing?"

"Would you like me to stop?"

Obviously the only sensible answer to that question was 'yes.' This was definitely overstepping the boundaries of an alliance.

"Er . . . no. Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

Charles gave up any attempt to make sense of current events, relaxed, and leaned forward. It had been a very long time since anyone had worked the kinks out of his back, and of course Amelia had never had the strength behind her hands that Erik was displaying now. There were definite advantages to having a male lover. Ally. Whatever.

"Erik?"

"What appears to be the problem?"

"Nothing. Although, you could rub a little lower. But . . . am I to take it that you *are* still attracted to me?"

"I never said otherwise. I merely pointed out that our relationship was a necessary casualty of our divergent political programs"

Charles sighed. Trust Erik to wriggle out on a technicality. "So. You are attracted to me. You want to have sex with me, even though we've been fleeing from mutates and prehistoric reptiles all day and exhausting ourselves in the process?"

Abruptly, Magneto took his hands away, and Xavier turned to find him looking unusually earnest. "I cannot ask for your trust or affection, and I can't offer you those things in return, or even guarantee your life beyond tonight." He sounded so miserable that Charles found himself reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder instinctively.

"Look at it this way: at least it will distract us from the ant bites."

Kissing was not much like riding a bike, but fortunately it was one of those things you didn't forget easily, no matter how much time had passed since your last girlfriend had bent over your wheelchair for a final embrace and walked out of your life forever. It had been even longer since he'd kissed Erik, of course, but there was a familiarity about the act that reassured Xavier even in the midst of chaos.

It had never ceased to amaze him that after the agonising months it had taken him to seduce Magneto (especially difficult since it would never do for Erik to realise that it hadn't been his idea in the first place) he seemed entirely uninhibited during the main event. He understood the reasons well enough intellectually, of course: Erik was obsessed with control, and believed that it was best achieved by behaving as assertively as possible, especially in unfamiliar and frightening conditions. Right now, he wanted to control Charles.

Once upon a time, Xavier would have fought back, twinned his own tongue around his lover's with some of the same aggression, thrust against him, struggled to get the upper hand. He had eventually learned that there was more than one way of winning this particular argument, and now reserved his energy for more important conflicts. If Erik needed to be in charge in order to feel safe, so be it.

At any other time, he would have been able to stretch into his lover's mind to seek his own reassurance, using the desire he found to fuel his own. Once again he regretted the lost of his powers, for the world was a cold and lonely place without them, even in Erik's arms. Soon enough, the taste of his lover and the scratch of stubble across his skin took his mind away from all of that, away from everything but those hands, the eyelashes at brushed his own, the hot mouth that lowered to kiss his shoulder, the cool water that did nothing to dampen their ardour. He wrapped his arms around Magneto tightly, and prayed that he wouldn't evaporate as he had done in so many dreams.

Erik was hard, urgent and earnest, and evidently in no mood for lengthy foreplay but Xavier didn't want to waste this rare occasion by rushing things. Drawing back, he looked at his lover thoughtfully, then reached down to the bottom of the pool and picked up another handful of sand.

"Charles?" Magneto said quizzically, obviously puzzled by the interruption.

"You're filthy, and we are supposed to be taking a bath. Now lie back and let me wash you."

Charles began with Erik's feet, carefully rubbing between each of his toes and smiling as his lover squirmed. There couldn't be too many people who knew that the Master of Magnetism was ticklish. He worked his way up Erik's legs, first one calf and then another, carefully rinsing the cuts and abrasions he found, unable to resist the temptation to plant a kiss on one knee. When he reached his lover's thighs, he heard Magneto breathe still faster, but continued to move his hands slowly, teasingly.

He was just beginning on Erik's stomach and making plans to move on to his chest when his subject groaned and seized his shoulders. "Charles, please . . . ?"

Xavier lowered his head to hide his grin and decided that he'd won this round. So. To business.

He had been worried that it would be hard to communicate with his lover without the aid of his psychic powers, but the noises Erik made as Charles leaned down before the other man and ran his tongue up his thigh and then, *very* slowly, along his shaft, told him more than enough about his state of mind. He paused for a moment, and contemplated doing something similar to the other leg, perhaps with swirls and variations, but decided that Magneto's patience was worn thin enough already.

Gently, he began to lick and suck Erik's penis, touching that spot just *there* below the head with his tongue, rewarded by more groans and a few words in a foreign language he wasn't paying enough attention to identify. It didn't take him long to fall into a rhythm, although this was more difficult than it looked without the telepathic feedback. Instead, he had to content himself in reading the way his lover stroked his upper back, and find a slightly masochistic pleasure in the way Erik's fingernails scraped every time he clenched his hands. Even without their psychic link, Xavier felt himself jerk in sympathy as Erik grew closer to completion, and he rubbed against his lover's calf beneath the water for a moment before telling himself sternly to be patient.

As it turned out, he didn't have long to wait before Erik gasped, shuddered and climaxed into his mouth, half-way through a thrust. Choking slightly, Charles thought of telling Magneto that he needed to *warn* him the next time they did this without their powers. Then he remembered that there probably wouldn't be a next time. Of any variety.

Erik leaned back in the water, flushed and panting. "You haven't lost your touch," he said, running a hand through his damp hair in a way that Charles found frankly erotic. Of course, in his current state anything Erik did was likely to reinforce his arousal.

"Thank you for saying so," Xavier replied, "would you care to prove that the same is true of you?"

Erik smiled in decidedly wicked fashion, and for a moment Charles feared that he was going to take revenge on his teasing lover by making him wait. Fortunately, Magneto had never been a patient man. "Get on your feet, Xavier," he said. Charles was only too happy to comply with the order, and he felt his pulse quicken still further as Erik knelt before him. Now *here* was an aspect of standing up that he'd missed.

Whatever Magneto's faults, he certainly knew when to cut to the chase - there was no teasing, no licking, he simply bent his head and swallowed Charles whole. Xavier gasped, went more than a little weak at the knees, and he might have lost his last shred of control if he hadn't tilted his head back and banged it against the cave wall. Although this no doubt added another bruise to Xavier's impressive collection, the pain only distracted him from the hot wetness of his lover's mouth for a moment. He steadied himself by twining his fingers through Erik's hair. It was as just as silky as he remembered as it slid through his fingers and it made a fascinating contrast with the stubble that brushed his thigh . . . but apparently Magneto wasn't enjoying the sensation as much as Xavier. Abruptly, he pulled away and looked up at his companion.

"Charles, you cannot *possibly* have any idea how annoying that is. Please cease and desist," he said brusquely, before recommencing his ministrations as suddenly as he had stopped. Charles let slip a moan, and reluctantly placed his hands on Erik's shoulders instead. Fingernails that he ought to have trimmed before he left the mansion dug in and left faint marks, with what could have been absent-minded pleasure or an edge of spite.

The Savage Land seemed very quiet to Charles Xavier, the birds he could hear preparing for their nightly rest much father away than they were in reality. He closed his eyes and listened to his own heartbeat, which almost seemed to echo off the walls. He consciously released the tension of the last few days, and forgot that the man kneeling before him was an enemy who would abandon him again as soon as they escaped this place. He felt the rocks and the jungle melt away along with his loneliness, until all that was left was water around his legs, hands on his back, shoulders under his hands, mouth wrapped around him, tongue and lips moving, wave after wave of pleasure building steadily towards a crescendo.

He couldn't remember afterwards if he warned his lover if he was going to climax to keep him from choking as well, or if Magneto, not used to the fringe benefits of telepathy, had simply been paying more attention than Xavier himself. He couldn't remember what he said during, either, only that he felt dizzy and happy and cried out. Probably something he shouldn't have.

Realising at last how exhausted he was, Xavier tasted blood, and found that he'd bitten his tongue. For some reason this struck him as amusing, and he chuckled as he sank down into the water beside his lover. "There," he said. "That wasn't so difficult, was it?" He stretched out to embrace Erik, but to his surprise the other man stood up, got out of the water and strolled over to the cave entrance silently. Xavier sighed heavily, pushing away anger and disappointment he had no right to feel. He should have learned by now not to let his expectations of Erik rise too high.

Once, Charles would have dragged his lover back to bed and explained in as few syllables as possible that he was quite safe and that everything would be alright tomorrow once his post-coital chemicals sorted themselves out. In the circumstances, however, the reassurances seemed hollow even to him. Besides, his socks still needed washing.

Silence reigned as Xavier climbed out of the water and retrieved his clothes. Cleaning them might keep him awake for a couple of hours, and it wouldn't do for the mutates to discover both their quarries naked and asleep. He'd need to wait for the swirling sand in the water to settle and rinse off before he got dressed, though. Wet sand to wash with was one thing, dry sand in your underwear the next morning was another.

"Is there a problem of some variety, Erik? Was my performance unsatisfactory?"

The ploy worked, and Magneto's head flicked around. He realised his tactical error in seconds though, and schooled his face back into an expressionless mask. Xavier waited.

"No. You were, as always . . . but I fail to see the point of the encounter when we'll probably be dead by morning."

Charles opened his mouth to say something with false cheerfulness, and was surprised to find himself laughing, with only the slightest edge of hysteria. "Erik, stop talking like more of an idiot than you are. How many situations more dire than this have you survived? Where there's life there's hope, and I for one feel very much alive."

"Sooner or later, our luck must run dry. Even a cat has only nine lives, and I believe that I burned my ration long ago."

"We have lived this long because of skill and endurance, not blind chance. As you will no doubt realise when you're properly rested. Now go to sleep."

"Charles, that's unnecessary - I will gladly take first watch . . ."

"Nonsense. You're obviously too tired to think straight." Xavier suspected that the same might be true of himself, but he could at least feign alertness and rationality for a while longer. Fortunately, it seemed that Magneto was too tired to argue as well. Charles watched while his friend wrapped himself in his cloak and curled up to sleep. Then he went back to working the grass stains out of his trousers.

"Charles?"

"Go to _sleep_, Erik."

"I was - I *am* - concerned about your safety, and I will try to get you out of this alive. You are also an idiot, however."

Charles Francis Xavier simply smiled, and found himself completely unable to think of a snappy response. Going on current evidence, he had to agree with his nemesis anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm blithely assuming that they were at it like crazed weasels at some point in TAS continuity. It really does make more sense if you look at the series that way :-).
> 
> Magneto is, canonically, the reason Charles couldn't walk in the animated series (Beast says so in _Sanctuary_), but I made up the bit about their battle on the astral plane. It was the only explanation I could think of for Xavier's miraculous recovery in the Savage Land, although astral injuries don't work that way in comic canon.


End file.
